Leaving the past behind

The Eagles are eager to forget last season, and their recent history of slow starts.

September 10, 2006|By Larry O'Rourke Of The Morning Call

The jolts and aftershocks of last season could be just what the Philadelphia Eagles need today to shake off their historically slow starts.

At least that's what free safety Brian Dawkins said after being remind the Eagles are just 2-5 in season openers with Andy Reid as coach.

"I'm not making an excuse for those years, but we weren't coming off a 6-10 season in those years," Dawkins said during a break in preparations for today's 1 p.m. season opener against the Houston Texans in Reliant Stadium. "This, to me, is a different beast, coming off a 6-10 season and trying to get ourselves back to where we want to be. It's going to be key for us to get, I believe, off to a great start.

"You can always recover, but I don't want to have to recover. I want to jump out and jump on people, and put things on film for those people that thought we were going to be in a rebuilding process [and show] that's far from the truth."

Others in the Eagles' equation shrug off the history of slow starts.

Coach Andy Reid can't help but be aware of his 2-5 record in openers, and slow starts that include 2001, when a season-opening loss led to a 3-3 record before an overall 11-5 finish, and 2003, when 0-2 became 2-3 before the Eagles finished 12-4. But Reid would not disclose what, if anything, he did to alter his team's approach to this opener.

"We prepare like we always prepare, and we're not going to change anything," said Reid, who stayed the course by holding his starters out of the preseason finale.

Quarterback Donovan McNabb, who is 2-4 as an opening-game starter, also shrugged.

"The way I look at it is that was the past, and this is the present," McNabb said. "We can't focus on what we've done in the past."

But at least one other Eagle kind of agrees with Dawkins on the need to bury last season as quickly as possible.

"We want to get you guys [in the media] off our backs," right guard Shawn Andrews said. "Everybody in here has faced adversity, but we're focused right now. We want to prove you guys wrong. We're going to be balanced, powerful and hardnosed. And now, I have to go to a meeting."

That meeting undoubtedly touched on some of the unknowns the Eagles will face today because Gary Kubiak will be making his head coaching debut for the Texans.

There are clues, however, in the fact Kubiak was a longtime backup quarterback and longtime offensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos. Based on that, the Eagles can expect to see Texans quarterback David Carr rolling out and sprinting out. They also expect to see the zone-style blocking employed by the Broncos. And, with former Green Bay coach Mike Sherman on Houston's staff as assistant head coach/offense, they can expect to see some elements of the Packers' offense from recent seasons.

The Texans' defensive coordinator is Richard Smith, who spent last season in the same role in Miami, and prior to that was a defensive assistant in San Francisco. So the Eagles looked to Dolphins and 49ers tapes to get an idea of what to expect.

"We know there are some things we're going to see that maybe we didn't prepare for, or things that we didn't see," McNabb said. "We have to make sure we make adjustments."

In addition to adjusting to the Texans' tactics, McNabb will have to adjust at least a little to his own personnel. Wideout Donte' Stallworth was acquired too late for the two to see preseason game action together, and feature back Brian Westbrook missed the final four preseason games because of a sprained foot.

"I would say right now, I'm where I want to be as far as knowing where the guys are going to be and how they react to certain things," McNabb said. "But with game situations, bullets are flying. It's a new adjustment. It's going to take some time, but I feel confident I know what they're going to do in certain situations."